OU football: Dylan Dismuke's career ends before it can begin

NORMAN — Dylan Dismuke was spending time in California, vacationing with his girlfriend and resting the severely injured knee that just wouldn't get better.

Former Duncan standout Dylan Dismuke's career is over due to a knee injury. Photo from The Oklahoman Archive

Dismuke’s phone rang about halfway through the trip. When he picked up, the voice on the other end of the line delivered crushing news Dismuke had quietly begun accepting as a possibility.

Co-offensive coordinator Josh Heupel asked Dismuke to accept a medical exemption, which essentially ends his Sooner football career after one season of redshirting.

“He just went through and explained I couldn’t do all the workouts I needed to do so I could be the player I needed to be,” Dismuke said in a telephone interview with The Oklahoman.

Dismuke, a 6-foot-7, 299-pound offensive lineman, was full of potential when he joined the Sooners following his standout career at Duncan High School But Dismuke was met with a staggering and humbling change of pace after arriving in Norman; he was redshirted, seeing no game action as a freshman.

“It was probably the hardest year I’ve ever had,” he said. “Just going from high school, where everything was really easy, to here, where I was at the bottom of the pole and just fighting to reach everybody else.”

In December 2011, during a non-contact drill in the Sooners’ first practice for the Insight Bowl, Dismuke “extended my knee all the way out,” causing his kneecap, he said, to “pop out,” along with cartilage.

Dismuke, who said he’s never had knee problems before, didn’t tear any ligaments, and was initially told he’d probably be sidelined from workouts for about a month.

But even when he returned to the weight room, his leg wouldn’t get any stronger.

“I never did get any of my leg strength back,” he said. “Every time I would lift, it would just make my knee swell up again and I wouldn’t gain any muscle.”

He tried to work through spring football, and even played in the spring game. But Dismuke’s knee wouldn’t allow him to participate in drills required to enhance the skills he needed to develop to earn playing time.

Dismuke had knee surgery after the spring game; it was after that when he started thinking his playing days might be over.

“The surgery went well, but they were telling me it was something that was never going to heal up,” said Dismuke, who added that he was never really given an exact diagnosis for his injury.

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by Jason Kersey

OU Sports Reporter

Jason Kersey became The Oklahoman's OU football beat writer in May 2012 after a year covering high school sports and OSU recruiting. Before joining the newspaper in November 2006 as a part-time results clerk, he covered high school football for...